David Temple began his life as a musician when, at the age of eighteen, he joined the London Philharmonic Choir. He taught himself to read music and was, within weeks, singing under conductors such as Sir Georg Solti, Sir Adrian Boult, Bernard Haitink, and Leopold Stokowski. His passion for classical music drew him towards conducting, and after having made a number of commercial recordings he became the founding conductor of Crouch End Festival Chorus. His extensive repertoire includes an impressive collection of commissions, from 1985 to 2018. With CEFC he has conducted Mahler’s Eighth Symphony in a sold-out Royal Festival Hall and Harmonium by John Adams in the presence of the composer. He has also prepared the choir for concerts under conductors such as Valery Gergiev, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Semyon Bychkov, Edward Gardner, and Jirí Belohlávek. A guest chorus master of the BBC Symphony Chorus, he has also, since 2000, been Musical Director of Hertfordshire Chorus; in June 2016 he recorded Will Todd’s Ode to a Nightingale and James McCarthy’s Codebreaker with HC and the BBC Concert Orchestra. David Temple relishes his collaborations with musicians from other genres, including Ray Davies, Ennio Morricone, and Hans Zimmer, all of whom are patrons of Crouch End Festival Chorus.